Then it rained all night. I wasn't worried because the shelter will stay dry. I was pleased with myself that I used a new, heavy duty tarp for the roof. It's bound to keep Lava and her babies nice n dry.
WHAMO! Came down this morning to check on Lava and bring her her favorite breakfast......and they're gone! Neither Lava nor Shelly were in the pen. I found one spot behind the new shelter where one of them, most likely Lava, tore a hole in the fencing. Yup, right through the fencing. I can only imagine that she was in labor and had an urgent need to get away. Animals often remove themselves to a remote spot to give birth, but I thought Lava was pretty content where she was. Looks like I was wrong. She's mostly feral rather than domestic, so I'm not totally surprised that she did something like this.
........skip to the end.........
After an all morning search I spied both Lava (very briefly from a distance) and Shelly in the back of the property. They were in the very back of pasture #3. This pasture is totally unimproved, meaning that it is extremely thick with a dense growth of ferns. Not even the sheep and donkey bother to venture into this pasture enclosure. Finding two hiding pigs would be close to impossible without scaring the daylights out of them doing it.
Im thinking that Lava has delivered her litter. If that's so, perhaps she will stay put for at least a few days. This may give me a chance to line the fence with a hotwire in order to permanently confine them. Of course this means clearing the fenceline a bit first. The fencing there will confine sheep and a donkey, but it's not set up to keep pigs in or out.
Looks like I have a job for the next couple days!
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